Many hard-wired information transfer systems employ coaxial cable as the system bus with taps into the bus being made as required to couple a station into the system. One particularly important application for coaxial cable taps is found in so-called local area networks in which a plurality of terminals or computers are coupled together to share the cumulative hardware/software/file capabilities of the system. In a typical local area network, taps into the system bus are effected by employing a "tee" coaxial cable adapter in conjunction with conventional coaxial cable connectors in order to join three lengths of coaxial cable; viz., two within the system bus and one to the terminal or local computer.
Those skilled in the art have become familiar with several problems which arise from this conventional approach to tapping into a local area network. (1) The system bus of a local area network must not be opened electrically during operation since this action will bring the entire system to undesirable (even potentially catastrophic) halt. (2) While skilled technical personnel familiar with the operation of a local area network will ordinarily recognize the correct terminal to disengage or engage when trying to connect or disconnect a terminal from the system bus, it is not at all obvious to the general office worker such that a very real danger exists of system disruption resulting from disconnecting the wrong cable from a fitting. (3) When a terminal is disengaged and "abandoned", the open terminal remaining, even if the disconnection has been correctly performed, presents a locally changed characteristic impedance on the system bus, a condition which can adversely affect the remaining network from transferring information reliably, particularly at higher data transmission rates. (4) When one terminal is to be replaced by another terminal which employs a different coaxial cable connector, the system must be shut down to change the "tee" to a different configuration. The present invention addresses all these well known problems and others of the prior art local area network taps.